Sunday, March 31, 2013

Happy Easter Sunday

If you know me, or have been around me during the winter holiday season, you know that I have a strong dislike for Christmas music. This dislike grew from 6 years of playing in middle and high school orchestras, where the Christmas and winter music played procured only notes that lived sharply above or flatly below the real tone and pitch of the song. Hearing such horrible Christmas music from October through December for six years, roughly five times a week was enough to render me uninterested. This dislike of Christmas music makes it even odder that today, on a warm, sunny spring day in California, I find myself listening to Otis Redding's version of "White Christmas".

While I am secretly dreaming of cooler weather as the warm summer days seem too quickly approaching, I had a sudden urge to listen to this song not because of the lyrics, but because of how his version makes you feel. It is both soothing to listen to, but also leaves you with an uneasy feeling, a sense of moving or rocking back and forth in place. I first heard this version in the film Love Actually, and if I remember correctly, it is played in the movie at a moment expressing mixed feelings of optimism for the happier couples, and sad beginnings of realisations for those with ill-fated endings.

The sense of loneliness and of longing fits my mood on this warm, spring day. But also my previous mentioned notion of rocking back and forth in place and not moving forward, is really how I find myself feeling today.

Today I find myself thinking of and missing my friends that are hundreds of miles away from me. Whether they live in a different city or different country, I find myself wishing I could be there with them, but, instead, I am stuck where I am.

So, whether you agree with my feelings about Redding's "White Christmas", or whether you think I am crazy and attaching personal feelings and sentiments to a song that does not share them....here it is for your listening pleasure.